Study hopes to identify brain changes in memory loss

By CAROLYN SUSMAN
Cox News Service

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is seeking men and women 55-90 to participate in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), a landmark research study. The study is being conducted at the Premiere Neurological Group in West Palm Beach, as part of a nationwide, $60 million effort to identify brain and other biological changes associated with memory decline.

The 5-year project was begun by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the NIH and is supported by more than a dozen other federal agencies and private-sector companies and organizations, making it the largest public-private partnership on brain research under way at the NIH.

Investigators at 58 local sites across the United States and Canada are involved in the study. The study is led by Dr. Michael Weiner, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco; Dr. Leon Thal, University of California at San Diego; and Dr. Ronald Petersen, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

The goal of the initiative is to speed up the search for treatments and cures for Alzheimer's disease by seeing whether imaging of the brain, through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or positron emission tomography (PET) scans, every six months can help predict and monitor the onset and progression of Alzheimer's. In addition, samples of blood and, for some participants, cerebral spinal fluid will be collected and tested to determine if these biomarkers can predict and monitor the disease.

For information about the study, contact the NIA's Alzheimer's Disease Education & Referral (ADEAR) Center at (800) 438-4380 or visit www.alzheimers.org/imagine.

Carolyn Susman writes for The Palm Beach Post